Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Protocol on ozone reduction. The Kyoto agreement set no binding targets
for developing nations, though two of its three so-called flexibility mecha-
nisms— the clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementa-
tion— involved cooperation between the developed and developing worlds
in reducing developing-world emissions. A third flexibility mechanism,
emissions trading, established markets in which governments and corpo-
rations could trade emissions allowances in order to reduce the economic
impacts of emissions reductions in both the developed and developing
worlds.
In the United States, the debates that sank the Kyoto Protocol were
mainly extensions of the domestic debates over the UNFCCC. Argu-
ments about the U.S. position on negotiating, signing, and ratifying the
UNFCCC in 1991 and 1992 bled into arguments between 1993 and 1996
about the nation's responsibilities for implementing that treaty, which in
turn informed arguments over the U.S. position on negotiating, signing,
and ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Again, disagreements over the U.S. posi-
tion on targets and timetables and on developing-world responsibilities
played out in the language of scientific uncertainty and economic risk.
Backed by the new Clinton administration, as early as 1993 select
Democrats and environmentalists began to push for major revisions to
President Bush's fiscally conservative no-regrets plan for climate change,
which they complained was merely “a compendium of programs and
actions that are being undertaken for other reasons.”
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Vice President Al
Gore and Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Tim Wirth continued
to support reducing U.S. emissions (for example, through transportation
infrastructure and energy and fuel efficiency), and they urged an aggres-
sive leadership role in international climate change negotiations. The cost
savings of energy efficiency and the new green technology jobs that would
result from aggressive U.S. emissions reductions, they argued, would lead
to economic growth at home and would put the nation in an economically
advantageous position abroad.
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On a broader scale, targets and timetables
would provide the market system with the certainty it required to adapt to
new regimes of energy use and emissions controls.
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Congressional Republicans, backed by industry representatives
like Michael Barrody of the Global Climate Coalition (whose members
included British Petroleum, Shell, DuPont, Ford, and General Motors,
among others), offered a multifaceted response that built upon the twin
